This is the first major museum exhibition of the Casablanca Art School, whose revolutionary approach proposed a bold new visual culture following Morocco’s independence in 1956. Reflecting a new social awareness, artist-professors including Farid Belkahia, Mohammed Chabâa and Mohamed Melehi transformed this institution by encouraging artistic experiments, looking beyond western academic traditions and drawing on existing local culture. This exhibition will explore how the teachers and students of the Casablanca Art School combined traditional Berber skills, materials and visual languages with modernist influences from Europe and North America, creating a space to reimagine Moroccan contemporary art and its relationship with everyday life.

Working across painting, sculpture, graphic design, architectural mural painting and many other media, the artists associated with the school placed art into public spaces and promoted it as a shared experience. This landmark exhibition brings together works by more than twenty artists, to include vibrant, abstract paintings, urban murals, craft, typology, graphics and ceramics, alongside rarely seen print archives, vintage journals and photographs.

Artists: Carla Accardi, Malika Agueznay, Hamid Alaoui, Mohamed Ataallah, Herbert Bayer, Farid Belkahia, Fouad Bellamine, Mohammed Chabâa, Saâd Ben Cheffaj, Ahmed Cherkaoui, André Elbaz, Abdellah El Hariri, Abdelkrim Ghattas, Mustapha Hafid, Anna Draus-Hafid, Mohamed Hamidi, Mohammed Kacimi, Miloud Labied, Mohamed Melehi, Houssein Miloudi, Abderrahman Rahoule, Chaïbia Tallal